The Editor Who Came In From the Cold.

I feel like I was the last person on earth to see this movie. Positive reviews were flowing all over twitter while it was in theaters and I could never seem to drag myself to the theaters, even though it seemed right up my alley. Crime drama, slow burn story, awesome actors, intense violence, fast cars, 80′s vibe. Whatever the case, I didn’t get to see this until it finally came out on blu ray, and it completely decimated me. The artistry of it is kind of hard to believe in this day and age, where the people with money can’t seem take a risk to save their family’s life. A lot of industry talk with the film has centered around its use of dissolves, and that is what really struck me as well. Personally, I am not a big fan of them. They have to be used sparingly, in my mind, and only at specific times. This comes from a lot of abuse early in my career due to a producer that required them on every transition. Well, this film just threw that ideology back in my face, and time and time again proved that the dissolve needs a rebirth of sorts. On top of that I think the actor Ryan Gosling is a force to be reckoned with and every movie I see with him these days hammers that point home.

It has been a while since I have put the time and effort into one of these breakdowns. It took a scene of this caliber to throw me into action, and I am so glad I did. There are so many things I learned through studying this over and over, and I hope you can glean something from it as well.
Most of my analysis is from a film editorial perspective but there will certainly be comments that deal more with directing and the other disciplines. First, I have to give credit where credit is due. Drive was released theatrically in 2011. The Director was Nicolas Winding Refn, the Film Editor was Mat Newman, and the Cinematographer was Newton Thomas Sigel. In new form I must include the Sound Designers, Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis, as well as the Composer, Cliff Martinez, who I am guilty of forgetting to credit in previous posts. This scene comes right after the notorious elevator scene at the 1-hour, 13-minute, and 23 second mark and is just over 2 minutes long.

1) This is actually the last shot of the previous scene, but it leads nicely into the scene I have been looking at so I included it here. It is the completion of a pretty intense scene in the movie where the main character, known only as Driver, utterly destroys another man in an elevator while his love interest looks on. At the end of the scene she has exited the elevator and Driver is left standing there as the door closes. Through the last couple shots there has been a steady tone playing in the score. Just after the sound of the elevator door shutting, another deep tone rises in volume and leads us into a hard cut to the next scene.

Bringing a little class back to the edit suite. It all started with a school assignment to make a commercial that spiraled out of control into an episode of COPS where the Pepsi Police took down a Coke ring. Years went by and I discovered video again in College in Cincinnati, where I stayed and started my career in post production. I have returned to the mountainous region of my forefathers and my future begins again. I am spending most of my waking moments on the lookout for any loose images that need to be put together in time and space with sound. I have a film editor's heart hidden within an advertising exoskeleton and I believe the cut is the greatest transition.